


It's A Gamble - Six Ressler/Reddington Kisses

by phinnia



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 06:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20925605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: Vaguely AU-ish.   Pre-Blacklist to the end of Anslo Garrick: Conclusion (1.10).





	It's A Gamble - Six Ressler/Reddington Kisses

The first time was in a casino in Monaco. Glitz, bright lights, oozing with glamour. Long shots and long skirts. Ressler, the youngest member of the task force at the time, was tasked to get into the casino and try to get eyes on Reddington. 

He found him at the roulette table, looking over the crowd like he owned it, a male lion in the prime of his life surveying his domain near an open watering hole.

"Pick a number between one and thirty-six." Reddington says to him casually, and hands him whatever he's been drinking.

"Uh ... eleven?"

Reddington nods and puts down a large handful of black and gold chips on eleven. The ball is spun, bouncing between spokes, rattling, and the wheel slows to a stop.

_"Onze."_The croupier calls. _Eleven._

Reddington smiles with delight and kisses him. He tastes like scotch and canapes and exhiliaration, and Ressler blinks and his mouth opens slightly and his eyes close because it's not a bad kiss exactly, a little dry, but good, and then something is dropped onto his head and he hears a slight 'clink' in his glass and Reddington's gone.

When he opens his eyes again a second later, he looks down. There is a ten-thousand dollar chip in his scotch glass, floating there like a dark ice cube, and he looks up slightly to see he's got a navy fedora on his head.

Reddington, of course, is nowhere to be seen.

The next time Reddington pokes his head out, it's three years later in Macau at a _dog track_ of all the ever-loving places and Ressler flipped Pete to go see him but he lost. And Red was there, standing right close to the track, leaning forward on the rail. Long and easy, graceful, and he was eating a cookie, for Christ's sake.

"Have you ever had one of these? They're absolutely _amazing_." Reddington turned, with a slight smile on his face. "Almond cookies. Fortune cookies aren't even Chinese, you know. These are the real thing. Here, try this." He puts half of the cookie into Ressler's mouth, leans over, and kisses him. 

"Ministry of State Security hit squad three yards behind you." Reddington murmurs as he passes his ear. "Probably for you."

Ressler nearly choked on the cookie, and swallowed.

"You've made somebody a bit annoyed in the Chinese government, Donald." Reddington chuckles. "I do like that in a man. Just watch the dogs."

There was shouting in Mandarin - he couldn't make out what, and distant gunshots, and the greyhounds ran by after the electric rabbit.

Reddington disappeared into the crowd.

There was a tiny part of Ressler who wondered what else he liked in a man. He tried to squash that under his heel.

The third and fourth kisses were in Tokyo, in an underground high-stakes poker game that he'd managed to bribe his way into with Bureau money. He wasn't surprised to see Reddington there - that just meant their intel was good - but he _was_ surprised to see Reddington just look up, smile, and pat his lap. "Ah, there you are. Come, sit down." And he reached out, grabbed Donald firmly but gently by the wrist, and damn if Ressler didn't just sit down like a lap cat. 

"Donnie's my good luck charm." Reddington explained in Japanese for the benefit of the rest of the table. "Won me three hundred sixty thousand and change in Monaco, didn't you, baby? Can't throw away that kind of rabbit's foot. Plus he looks damn fine in a suit, even if he does insist on buying off the rack. I wonder what you'd look like in something tailored." Hot breath on the back of his neck, a kiss pressed there, just above the back of his tie. "Probably utterly sublime."

Donald tried to force a smile on his lips and looked down at the cards on the green baize felt. They swam in front of him.

Reddington said a few things in a dialect of Japanese he couldn't make out, and then there was gunfire, and one of the other players slumped forward. Blood started flowing across the cards and the table.

"Until next time, Donald." Reddington murmurs, lifting him onto his feet, brushing his lips against Ressler's own, and disappearing into the shadows.

After that it was a long time until he saw Reddington again. The day he surrendered, actually. 

And then Anslo Garrick broke in to the Post Office, and they were shut in that damn box. 

"Ressler knows the code!" Harold shouted from the bay around them.

"Do you, Donnie?" Reddington murmured. "Tell me."

Garrick taunted them from outside. Ressler faded in and out of consicousness.

"Did you mean that?" he says blearily.

"Did I mean what?" Reddington says, thumbing through the rest of their medical supplies.

"That I look ... damn fine ... in a suit." 

Reddington laughs heartily. "Oh, Donald, you look utterly _fantastic_ in a suit. The only good reason to buy off the rack is that they're cheap and your lovers can tear them off you. Plus you have the most amazing ass. What's the code for this thing? Getting a bit warm in here, and you're getting awfully bloody."

Ressler tried to focus through the pain and the blood and the fog. "Romeo. The code is Romeo."

Red gives the code word, then bends down and kisses him full on the mouth. "Good boy."

The sixth kiss is when he's in the hospital, recovering from his leg being mangled into a piece of hamburger. They told him that without Reddington's efforts he probably wouldn't have survived, and he has absolutely no idea what to think about that at all. 

When he wakes up again, he finds Reddington sitting on the end of his bed, eating his Jell-O. It's seriously disorienting.

"Why the hell do you always find this stuff in hospitals?" Reddington says. "I mean, it's not clear fluid, it's just some kind of strange green stuff they give to children. I had a girlfriend in high school whose mother used to always put _vegetables_ in it. _Terrible_. Carrots and everything. Salads were a _living nightmare_ at her house." He leans over and pushes a lock of Ressler's hair out of his face, tenderly, like he does this all the time. 

"What are you doing here?" Donald murmurs, swallowing. 

"Eating your shameful excuse for dessert, at the moment. But don't worry, I brought you something infinitely better than this." He pushes a small paper bag towards Ressler. 

Ressler took it out of the bag, took the clear top off of it, and sniffed. "Looks like chocolate pudding."

"Oh, I should smack that pert little ass of yours for even _thinking_ it's _chocolate pudding_." Reddington looked annoyed, and then strangely thoughtful. "Hmmm. Maybe later. Not here, though, you're hooked up to too many machines. That, my adorable Adonis, is _pots du creme au chocolat_." He dips his Jell-O spoon into it and gently puts the spoon into Ressler's mouth. "There. Isn't that a thousand times better than Jell-O?" 

"Oh my God." Ressler murmured, licking his top lip. "Where did you get this?"

"A little place I know in Baltimore. It's incredible, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Red fed him another bite. "After we get you out of here, there are a lot of _things_ that you can do with _pots du creme au chocolat_ and a lover with a pert little ass."

Donald cleared his throat. "Like what?"

"Oh, I probably shouldn't mention." Reddington looked at the ceiling with half a smile on his face.

"No, you probably should."

Reddington leans over, kisses the fancy French chocolate pudding off of his lips, and starts whispering utterly filthy things in his ear. 

He tries very hard to breathe steadily and not make the heart monitor go off. It wasn't easy at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)


End file.
